Friday 5 June 2009

on power and lack

A clear problem with social darwinism is brought to light by its blind-spots.

If it could articulate its position -- which of course it doesn't, because it has chosen a position in the antiquated paradigm of mind-body dualism that is on the side of the body -- it might say this:

"Yeah, well, sorry about that. But it's just the way life is. Humans always respect a display of force, but humans have no real attraction for the intellect. They don't respect it because they are programmed that way, to have no bar of it."

We can see the obvious problem, now, with social darwinism, in that its formulation writes me out of existence. I'm not in this human world, according to it. And that, quite clearly, is a contradiction.

For I do respect the intellect -- and, in non dualistic fashion, I respect it as a kind of force.

And when a patriarch does a little social darwinistic jig around me, using words judged to impose dominion, I tend to see that approach as indicative not of a use of force but of an absence of the intellect.

Which shouldn't be possible according to social darwinistic theory. For, if force always has a higher value than the intellect -- which is what many social darwinists assume -- by rights I should not be able to perceive anything intellectually lacking in the patriarchal jig of dominance. And I most certainly do.

Poorly considered dominance ploys display quite openly a lack of appropriate intellectual judgment about the world. 

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Cultural barriers to objectivity